Hair-brained Heather

Once again I am debating about what to do with my hair. To cut or not to cut, that is the question. Really it should probably be change or no change? Every time my hair hits that length, you know, when it's long enough to put into a ponytail EVERY day..... I hit the internet and scour pictures of haircuts, peruse my old hair pictures, decide on something and then head up to see Deena at the salon. I really only do this like 3 times a year, but it seems as though I am always changing my hair. So to showcase my fetish with changing my hair, here is my "hall of hair". Pathetic I know. For your amusement. Enjoy!

Hi. My Name is Grumpy.

Why I've decided to change my name to grumpy today:
*4th day of a massive migraine
*wiggin' out contacts
*overcharge on my phone bill
*2nd degree burn on my arm that is not getting better
*whiny kiddos
*tired
*R.S. stress
*payday isn't 'til Friday
*huge hole in my tooth that has been waiting to be fixed for 6 weeks and won't be fixed for 3 more weeks


Why I really shouldn't be grumpy:
*hubby cooked dinner
*bills are paid for the month
*had a playmate over for Jarom today--he was entertained and not clinging to my arm all day
*Em's quilt is ALMOST DONE!
*No one is sick today
*My house is warm
*There is no snow on the ground


Okay, okay, I'll quit whining. But I'm still grumpy.

Hello?

Phone, why oh why do I hate you so much? I really don't mind talking to people. I'm not a hermit. I like to talk. Why oh why do I hate the phone? I REALLY hate calling people. Like REALLY. I get so nervous if I have to call someone to remind them about something for Relief Society. I chew off all my nails before I call someone to ask anyone to borrow something. I put phone calls off 'til the very last minute I can. I stress about them until I get them done. I even have a hard time calling my fam 'cuz I never know exactly when they're working. Excuses, excuses, I know! Is there some sort of medical condition for this phone disease, 'cuz if there is, I swear I have it. It's so weird though, because once I'm actually on the phone I'm usually okay. And if the anwering machine picks up? Even better. Whoo! I'm not afraid to answer the phone. I don't mind when people call me. What in the world? I'm just weird. There you have it. After having to call 15 people this morning to cancel a Relief Society activity (took half an hour of build-up-you-can-do-this pushing myself, but I eventually did it), I decided to check the good old web to see if anyone else has this problem. Turns out I'm not alone. Which is fairly reassuring. But sheesh! There you have it, my biggest weakness laid out in full. Technically there's not a set name for it, but phone phobia is basically a shootoff of social anxiety disorder. Great. Interesting to know. I knew I was a little awkward, but I'm not that bad am I? Probably. SO in case you're wondering why I don't return your calls or call very often, that's me in a nutshell!

Farm Fun

My friend Megan invited Jarom and I out to the farm for her little boy's birthday party. They live on a big family farm here in Cody. Such a cute little family and fun farm. They took us all on a hayride around the farm. The kiddos got to see the animals, all the cows, pigs, etc. and they got to jump into a giant pile of sunflower seeds and barley wheat. They had SOOO much fun.

Plumber anyone?

I had a fun-filled day the other day.....

See, I was upstairs in the shower when I heard the sound of lots of water running. And it wasn't the shower. I threw on my towel and ran downstairs to find water pouring out of the expansion tank of the water heater. It was spraying everywhere. The tank had a huge crack right down the middle of it. I ran and turned off the house water shutoff valve (do you know where yours is?--if you don't it's a GOOD thing to know). Then I called Ryan to come home and help. We ended up calling a plumber to come and fix it. He came and put a new tank in. $145 later..... Grrr.....

The water got all over the place, the floor and walls in the laundry room and sprayed up into the air vents, so it was dripping down in the family room too. We pulled back the ceiling tiles and sucked out the water and aired it out.

Good thing we have one of these in the laundry room. :) About twenty minutes after the plumber left the water heater was leaking too, so we had to fix that ourselves, by draining the tank, replacing the TP valve. It probably needed drained anyway, but grr... We spent the rest of the day cleaning up all the water, sucking it up out of the carpet and cleaning it off the cement floor in the laundry room. We went through a lot of towels, created a lot of laundry and made my house smell musty for a few days.

The good news? All done now! And no permanent damage. At least I was home when it happened, it could have been worse!

I am NOT a quilter... But I can pretend to be!

My sister-in-law Courtney is a quilter. A very, very, very, very, very, VERY good one. She makes beautiful quilts. And they're all perfectly straight and quilted all cute. She has made several quilts and blankets for my little brood, and they LOVE them. And she would whip out more for my kids if I wanted her to, she's awesome like that. But for some dumb reason I decided that I wanted to make my kids each their own quilt. And tackle the whole dang thing myself. It's not that I haven't appreciated all her hard work and talent. She has spent hours and hours and lots of money on my kids wonderful quilts. But here's the thing: I think it's mostly that I wanted my kids to have a blanket just for them made just by their mom. But let me tell you, I am NOT a quilter. We're talking straight stitch 7th grade Home Economics here... So 2 years ago I decided to jump into the Relief Society quilting class that a lady in my ward was teaching. I even bought a new sewing machine. And I did good. We did a small table runner. I picked out some yummy colors (I DO think that I have a knack for picking colors and patterns that go together)and went to town. Through that class I finished the table runner. It took about 5 months, 'cuz I only worked on it there, but I FINISHED it! And it didn't look too shabby! So I decided to tackle my kids quilts next. I've spent hours on hours putting together three of them (over the last two years), one for Blake, one for Emmalee, and one for Jarom. I have Jarom's blocks put together, but need to sew them all together to finish the top. The top is almost done on Blake's. and Emmalee's is currently being quilted! I'm really trying to get Em's done for her birthday in 23 days, 'cuz I promised her it would be done ages ago, and I'm trying to really meet this deadline. She's turning 8, so I think it would be perfect. So I'm trying to "quilt" the thing now. I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to get it straight so I could spray the batting down and stick the two pieces together. I would get the one side all flat and smooth and then turn it over and smooth out that side and then when I got that side done, I would turn it back over and the other side would no longer be smooth anymore. I tried to smooth it out again like five times and every time I did the other side would become unsmooth. SO frustrating. I got it as smooth as I could and have been sewing it together for like 8 hours now. The front looks good, but the back is not turning out how I want it to and I can't figure out how to fix it. I really don't want to pick it all out and start over again. But it just looks sloppy. So I'm trying to decide what to do. I think I'm just going to finish it. The top looks great, it just doesn't look wonderful on the back. Maybe I'm just paranoid. I'll post pics when I get it all done. Wish me luck to get it done!

How about just Forward...

I was reading through my last post, and I am absolutely amazed at how things just "slide" into place. I guess I need to just learn to be a little more patient huh? No, I haven't made a concrete decision about whether or not to have another baby. But I did get a "job offer" if you will. We went to Billings last week to take a much needed temple trip. The whole session I had the thought sitting in the back of my head as to what I should do with my work/not work situation. We got through with our session and headed back into town, and a friend of mine from the ward had called and left a message on my voicemail. She was wondering if I might be interested in watching 2 boys twice a week for her sister-in-law. Her sister-in-law just had her old babysitter quit because she was going back to school, so she is looking for another sitter. She wants to hire me, and so we're going to try a trial run next week. If it works out good for both of us, I would be earning about $80-$100 a week for watching a few extra kiddos twice a week. Which honestly would be perfect right now, since I only have Jarom at home with me now since my oldest 2 are in school. We're meeting tomorrow to let the kids meet and check out the house. Here's to hoping it works out well. I really think this would be a good change and a good opportunity. We'll see.

Right or Left?

Do you remember the feeling you had senior year of high school? No, not the top of the world, "seniors rule" stuff, not the "so tired of school, wondering if I can graduate if I skip this paper", and not the crush you had on that guy... You know-- the feeling of being all done with being a kid. You know, having the whole world in front of you, and not having any set "direction" on what you were supposed to be doing next? The shove of adolescence into adulthood. Having an infinite world of possibilities open to you. What next? Choose. Just decide. In a way, I suppose there was a little direction, I knew that I wanted to go to college and finish a degree, get married and have kids. And that's what I did. But now I'm back to square one. I can't DECIDE. What next? hmm... I've been seriously pondering lately about what I'm doing next. I'm torn between whether or not I want more kids. There are days when I seriously think I should just quit while I'm ahead, and move on. For goodness sake, my youngest will be 3 in August. The end of diaperland is in sight, literally. Having all three kiddos in school is 2 years around the corner. But then there are other days when I just feel like I'm not done. One or two more would be nice. My baby is not truly a "baby" anymore. Time for another one. That's how it worked before. I'm comfortable with that. I can handle one or two more. I just don't know. Am I prepared to never again feel the little kicks of pregnancy? Is my daughter destined to be the only girl, never get a sister? But if I am done, what next? What am I supposed to do once all my kids are in school? Can I use my degree for anything here? I pulled up my old resume the other day and decided to update it. And I looked it over and added some things and then I really took a look at it. It scared me. All my work experience is from years ago. My college degree has been sitting for years. And then I took a look at the job market in town. What would I qualify for, where could I work, etc. Frankly, I'm a little stumped. This little town has limited career paths. I've been trying to think a little forward, I always think like 5 years ahead. I have a vague plan in there somewhere. But right now I feel like I'm standing at the end of a road, trying to decide which way to go. And I feel like even then, I can hardly see other roads. I've vaguely considered that I would go back to work somewhere, be shuttling my kids back and forth from activities, pushing my hubby to go for his graduate degree, eventually add on to the house or upgrade to a new one. I still have goals, but now I'm looking into how I start making them work and bring them to life. I just need to decide and go forward. Which is honestly a little overwhelming sometimes. I'm been asking and asking for a little direction and I just keep coming back to a thought someone once expressed, that we need to make a concrete decision and THEN ask if it's right. We need to do the legwork and check that we're still doing good. So I suppose that I really need to just jump. One way or another, I need to just decide. Wish this extremely indecisive girl luck with that. She's gonna need it. :)

Why today was a NICE day...

CHIROPRACTOR APPOINTMENT.
I can move my neck and shoulders again!

My fun internet find

I was surfing the web looking for a nice scripture case for my daughter's upcoming 8th birthday (I KNOW! I can't believe that she's gonna be 8... I am SO old), and I came across this fun idea. It is a tote bag that you could use for pretty much anything, and get this--it's made out of place mats. Yup. You get a placemat, you decorate it with ribbon handles and embellishments and straight stitch the two sides. Easy peasy. Yup, RIGHT up my alley. We're gonna do them for our "Super Saturday" in a few weeks. I did 6 of them, and it took me like 2 hours to make all six. They're really quick and TOTALLY customized and pretty darn cheap to make. Take a peek. I think they turned out way cute.

I think, therefore I overprotect...

I'm such a worrywart. I'm a little paranoid when it comes to my kids. Let me give you a true life example. Then you can see what a total "mom" I am. Today my son had a birthday party at the rec center for twins in his kindergarten class. I've met the parents a few times at school and they were in a preschool program with Blake, so I let him go. And honestly it would have been perfectly acceptable for me to have just left him there with them for the whole two hours. I even wholeheartedly trusted them! But like I said, I'm a little worrywart. Especially when it comes to water. Today it was a swim party. So worrywart Heather decided to workout and "watch" the kiddos down below in the pool. Turns out I'm not alone in the worrywart-ness. For an hour I pounded the eliptical and the treadmill and kept an eye on my son. Pathetic huh? On the bright side I got my workout in and I got peace of mind that he was just fine in the pool. So there you have it. I watch them like a hawk in public places, and I cringe when other parents in public places are not "parents". Don't get me wrong, I'm not always a perfect parent, and I certainly don't catch EVERYTHING my kids do, but I do consider myself a fairly vigilant parent. However, nothing infuriates me more than when we are at McDonald's or a playground and my kids are playing and some random kid comes up and is mean to my kid for some reason. But that's not even the infuriating part. I look around to make sure that this kid's parent has seen what their kid is doing and they are nowhere to be found. Did they mistake the playground for the daycare center? Because I don't work at a daycare even though I FEEL like I do sometimes. The result? As the only parent around, I feel completely obligated to watch the other kids. Must be that "mom" radar. And even if the parent does see their kid doing whatever it is they are doing, they don't take any action at all! I guess my question is where do you draw the line? You can't exactly tell the kid off yourself, but you do have an obligation to protect your own child. My current stance is this: I console my child and say very loudly (so that the offender and/or parents can hear) to my child something along the line of "it was not very nice of that kid to do that huh? WE don't hit." And if my kid is the instigator, I make them go apologize to the kid and make sure they are okay. I suppose it is all that I can do, but it sure can be a frustrating thing sometimes. I must say that there ARE moms out there who side more with my stance. Which is great. But it seems as though there are more and more that don't. Just sayin'.....